Road to Dune (11 page)

Static noises. A garbled response. She repeated herself, and Tuek answered, “Every flightworthy vehicle is combing the desert, but the Coriolis winds wiped out all signs.”

Anger and accusations edged her voice. “How could you let them fly into a storm, General? You are responsible for the nobleman’s safety!”
Even when he does foolish things … like his father and his brother
. Despair threatened to overwhelm her, like an inundation of sand burying her for eternity.
My son, my son!

Tuek looked miserable himself, but frowned at her condemnation. “Madam, one doesn’t prevent Nobleman Linkam from doing anything once he has a mind to do it. Sweet affection, if I had known, I’d have used a stunner myself and tied him up in one of the spice silos until he came to his senses.”

“How about the observation satellites? Don’t we have any with high enough resolution to scan for the ornijet’s locator beacon?”

“Dr. Haynes has been working nonstop, but he’s managed to get only four of the satellites working
at all,
and they’re not worth much! We should already have picked up the beacon—unless it’s not functioning.”

“Can you scan for the hull metal? Debris?”

“Not with all the distorted fields.” Tuek drew a deep breath, sounding impatient; apparently, he had already considered every suggestion she’d made. He acted as if she was stepping on his toes. Back on Catalan, he and Dorothy had both been powerful, often at odds but with clearly segregated duties. On Duneworld, though, business and defense overlapped heavily. “But we’ll find him. I’m flying out on a scout patrol myself.”

“Do you need extra men?”

“No, there aren’t enough vehicles. I’ve shut down spice operations to devote all crews to the search. Please don’t tell me how to do my job.”

Dorothy bit her lip. Jesse would hate any slowdown in production, and so would the sandminers, who desperately wanted to earn their freedom. If only he had listened to her about the dangers of going to the forward base—and taking Barri with him.

The static was growing worse. “Just … send me regular reports!”

After signing off, she went to find Gurney Halleck. The jongleur would round up his own teams, commandeer any functional flyer, and send men to scour the desert. If stern old Tuek couldn’t rescue her family, maybe Gurney could.

11

I have seen many worlds in the Known Universe: some beautiful, some bland, some so alien they defy description or understanding. Duneworld is the most enigmatic of the enigmatic.

—GURNEY HALLECK,
notes for an uncompleted ballad

T
rudging across the cool, dark sands, the three figures followed the spine of a tall, snaking dune. Their moonlit footprints looked like the track of a centipede winding into the shadows. Barri took the lead, showing an energy and determination that went beyond the usual enthusiasm of an eight-year-old. Jesse drew strength from his son’s tireless optimism.

Without warning, the boy stumbled into a pocket of loose powder, and his legs slid out from under him. He flailed for balance, but could find nothing solid to hold. Barri cried out, slipping down the steep slope of the dune. Dislodged sand washed like loose snow down into the basin. A few buried stones, some as large as a man’s head, spat out of the dune’s side, bouncing, tumbling.

Jesse ran toward him. “Barri!”

The young man had the presence of mind to jam his legs deep into the sand and thrust his arms into the flowing grains, and eventually stopped himself by digging in. Covered with sand, his face mask knocked loose, Barri looked up, coughing and choking, but managed to reassure his father. He actually grinned. “I’m all right!”

Sliding sand and stones continued to flow past him to the base of the dune, where the bouncing stones hit a hard white patch that broke apart and resonated. Compacted grains struck each other and triggered an acoustic shockwave like the heartbeat of a violently awakened giant. The thumping pulse boomed into the night.

Barri tried to scramble up the dune slope, feeling a mixture of fear and fascination. The pounding built upon itself, a thrumming vibration that rose to a crescendo.

“Drumsand!” English exclaimed. “Grains of a certain size and shape, acoustically packed … unstable equilibrium.” The spice foreman was pale. “It’s loud enough to draw a worm! Climb, lad;
climb!
”

Jesse scrambled to meet his son halfway, grabbed Barri by the arm, and pulled him up. “We have to get away from here.”

Already gasping and exhausted, Barri could hardly stay on his feet. When they reached the dune crest, English gestured frantically. He bounded along, his feet stirring the sand. When the liquid dune slope began to drop them to a gully, the freedman cut sideways and skidded down the sands. “We have to get far from that drumsand!”

They slid into the gully, then slowed as they cut an ascending zigzag up to the peak of another dune ridge away from where Barri had first stumbled. From far behind, they heard a familiar hissing, stirring sound … the passage of something huge and serpentine.

“Stop!” English said in a harsh whisper. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

The three froze and stared across the moon-silvered sands. They saw turmoil in the drumsand valley as a blunt head emerged like a sea serpent from the sandy depths. Sand grains showered from its massive body like diamond specks. When the worm plunged again, the reservoir of drumsand vibrated and thumped with a last few dying echoes until the creature destroyed the delicately balanced acoustic compaction.

English sank into a weary squat atop the dune ridge. Jesse and Barri sat beside him, holding their breath. The slower hissing sound of disturbed sand reminded Jesse of the whisper of waves on the far-away Catalan seas.

Finally, they got up and set off into the night again.

TWO DAYS LATER in the heat of afternoon, the bedraggled trio stopped in the shadow of a rock outcropping. Concentrated spice had kept them alive and moving, but their carefully rationed water was now almost gone. Jesse and English both knew they would consume the last drops within another day. And according to the paracompasses, they were barely more than halfway to the automated outpost.

Leaning against the rocks, they kept their uncomfortable face masks in place to minimize moisture loss. While the spice foreman dozed, conserving energy, Jesse watched Barri, who was holding up like a champion. The boy never slackened his pace, did not moan or complain. Despite Dorothy’s indulgent manner, Barri did not show signs of excessive coddling; he just needed to be given a chance to prove himself.

If his descendants were like this young man, Jesse held out hope for the future of House Linkam. With common sense and a strong foundation of moral integrity, Barri would grow up to be far superior to most of the Empire’s spoiled and corrupt noble heirs. But only if the boy survived the next few days … .

Snooping among the rocks, Barri discovered a patch of graygreen lichen. He called his father over. “Something’s alive here.”

As Jesse approached, tiny furtive shapes began moving in the crevices. “They’re … rodents!”

Barri reached in and found a nest, but could not catch the bouncing little forms. From a higher cranny, a little kangaroo rat poked out its narrow head, squeaking accusations and scolding the human intruders.

“How did they get out here? Do you think some of Dr. Haynes’s specimens got loose?”

Jesse could think of no other explanation. “Maybe Dr. Haynes intentionally set them free. He said he wanted to establish an ecosystem on Duneworld.”

Shoulder to shoulder, he and Barri watched the tiny kangaroo rats scurry about their business. Jesse took heart. “If they can survive here, Barri, so can we.”

12

Life is full of frayed ends. It is a terrible thing when you show anger to a loved one, never knowing that it might be the last time you are together.

—DOROTHY MAPES,
A Concubine’s Life

J
esse and Barri had been gone for too long. Much too long. Few things could have survived out in that desert for so many days.

With aching loneliness in her heart, Dorothy wondered if she would ever see her loved ones again. Though she was a sharp business manager and the financial watchdog of the Linkam holdings, she was also a mother, and a wife in everything but the title. Her stomach had wrenched itself into a tight knot.

As each unsuccessful patrol returned, she lost a fine thread of hope, a little bit of the precious connections she’d had with Jesse and Barri. The friction of her last night with the nobleman had left her full of regrets, guilt, and uncertainty. Should she have demanded that he bow to her wishes? Then Jesse and Barri might not be lost out in the infinite desert. Or should she have been more supportive, even if she disagreed with him?

If he ever came home, she knew Jesse would pretend that nothing had happened between them; but he wouldn’t forget, and neither would she. The disagreement would hang like a curtain between them.

Intellectually, she understood why Jesse had wanted their son to understand hardship, to know how ordinary people lived and worked, to be tempered by real experience and difficult decisions instead of softened by pillows and pampering. But how could a mother not try to make her son as safe as possible? Barri had not yet reached his ninth birthday … and now he was lost out in the arid wasteland, probably dead.

When the boy had departed on the transport shuttle with his father, he had looked so dignified, so proud and manlike. She had never seen him look like that before.

God, how she hated this place!

Dorothy paced down the halls, trying to keep busy, looking for something to occupy her thoughts. If Jesse was gone, should she formally withdraw from the challenge on his behalf? He had designated her his legal proxy in business matters. Without Jesse, and Barri, there
was
no House Linkam, and the Nobles’ Council would no doubt dissolve it, distribute the Linkam holdings, and absorb the administration into another family. She would go back to Catalan as a commoner again, alone except for her memories.

Ahead, she saw Cullington Yueh slowly climbing the main stairway, holding the stone railing. The gray-haired old gentleman reached the top short of breath. “Oh, Dorothy! I’ve been looking for you.”

“Any word?” Her voice cracked with concern, though she tried to cover it with a dry cough. “Gurney should have been back hours ago.”

“Not yet, but General Tuek says communications are fully restored, back online after the storm. He’s quite interested in getting the spice operations going again. Some of the ships have been improved with live-rubber shielding, and they can fly farther and with less risk of malfunction. Oh, and Dr. Haynes has restored a few more satellites. Still, you know how problems can arise.”

“Especially here. I hate those Hoskanners for leaving us with junk.”

“No sign of the new spice harvesters or carryalls that you ordered from Ix, either.” Yueh rubbed his gray mustache. “Aren’t they overdue?”

“Yes, the first order is a week late.” It struck her as odd that the kindly old family physician was interested in spice-harvesting equipment, but she appreciated his concern while Jesse was gone.
Gone
. Such a final sound to the word. Her heart sank, but she forced her thoughts into line. Jesse was counting on her to make sure House Linkam did not fall apart. “Something about production delays.”

Gurney had attempted to follow up with an Ixian representative, but hadn’t gotten a straight answer, and for the past several days all resources had been devoted to the search for the missing ornijet. She frowned. “You think the Hoskanners might have something to do with that?”

“Accidents happen,” Yueh said. “And some accidents happen on purpose.”

Sensing her misery, the old man massaged her shoulders and neck with his surgeon’s fingers, working pressure points, but she could feel his hands shaking. “This used to make my wife Wanna relax.”

“Your wife? I didn’t know you were married, Cullington!”

“Oh, it was a long time ago. She died … something I couldn’t cure. That’s why I try my best to heal everyone else.” He gave a bleak smile.

Yueh was a self-described “splint and pill man,” earning his early medical experience on Grumman’s World, a distant planet replete with odd swamp maladies and native fruits that oozed contact poisons. He had joined House Linkam years ago as their dedicated physician, claiming he wanted a peaceful, out-of-the way place like Catalan. Here on Duneworld, though, he seemed out of his depth.

Dorothy eased his hands away. “Thank you, Cullington. I feel much better.”

His hazel eyes were filled with concern. “No, you’re still worried. But I appreciate your saying so anyway.” Then he ambled off on one of his many errands. Rarely did she see the doctor take a break.

Dorothy headed for the south wing. Encountering one of the maids, she requested a pot of strong spice tea and a large cup on a tray. Then, carrying the tray herself, Dorothy took a spiral staircase up to the fourth level. The melange would soothe her … and so would the conservatory.

She pressed the hollow stone on the dead-end wall. When the hidden door slid open with a hiss, she stepped inside and was assailed by the heavy odor of dead and decaying plants. Not a soothing place after all.

The secret conservatory had suffered for weeks, since she had shut off the irrigation system and diverted the water to vital uses. The speckled fungi had already collapsed into mush, while the once-verdant ferns had turned a sickly, yellowish brown. Formerly bright and colorful flowers were dried up now, with discolored petals scattered on the caked soil. Only a few plants still clung to life, though they had no hope of surviving.

Scuttling insects darted in and out among the dead plants, feeding off the remains. The decay had turned into a feast for the tiny scavengers, and they’d been reproducing madly. But that niche of life, like the rest of the enclosed ecosystem, would also end soon.